After eight years as Program Director of Frankfurt School’s Bachelor (BSc) in Business Administration, it’s time for me to say goodbye.
I’m taking up a new position as Frankfurt School’s Director of Corporate Development. I will work with the President and the Managing Board to develop and refine corporate strategy. I will drive and implement new growth initiatives and strategic cross-cutting projects. It’s an exciting opportunity for me to influence and shape the university’s future as a whole. As I move on, I reflect on the significant achievements of the past eight years.
Transforming a program
When I started as Program Director of the BSc in 2011, the program consisted of (mostly male) German students who worked at one of the large banks in Frankfurt while studying at Frankfurt School. One of my first tasks was to introduce fully English-taught tracks in the program to diversify our offering, which launched in 2012. Today, except for the core curriculum (which we offer both in English and German), we teach everything in the BSc in English. This is one example of the changes we made throughout the years, always trying to improve our students’ educational experience.
We overhauled the Basic Study Phase (2019), the Advanced Study Phase (2014), and introduced new Concentrations (2016 and 2017). Many of those reforms were informed by the experiences from the “Creative Complexity” pilot project we ran from 2012 to 2014.
Not every change was curricular, though. In 2013 we began to organize introduction events for the incoming students to get to know each other and the School. They now run over five days under the motto “Get Ready for the Frankfurt School Experience“.
Together with the rest of the School, we obtained the coveted international accreditations AACSB and EQUIS in 2014 and were reaccredited in 2017 and 2019, respectively.
In 2016 we launched a unique “Fast Track” program for future students who have been proposed by their secondary schools for entry into the prestigious scholarship program of the German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes). For these students, we waive the admissions tests and guarantee them a scholarship. The number of students enrolled through this program has been rising every year, which is an important signal: the Frankfurt School BSc is an attractive option for each cohort’s strongest performers.
Finally, the move to the new Campus in the fall of 2017 was a significant milestone for the BSc. Not only do we have more space now for our students, the new lecture rooms and facilities are also another quality league.
The BSc today
In the fall semester of 2019, we count 955 degree-seeking students plus 83 visiting exchange students. That’s a third more than 2012, following eight years of continuous growth. The BSc student body is not only larger but also more diverse. Almost a third of our incoming students are now female. That’s still not parity but much more than the 20% we had a couple of years ago. More than 30% of new students have a non-German passport. The strong growth in international applicants shows that our program is internationally competitive.
I’m proud of what we’ve achieved together—my team, our faculty, adjunct lecturers, and, of course, our students who have been active, vocal, and sometimes critical partners in our strive to make the program better every day.
